Rogers project gets more money and conflict between City Council, School Committee thaws

NEWPORT – Although the City Council unanimously voted on Wednesday to contribute $6.3 million from the city budget to bridge the Rogers High School project’s funding gap, the process to reach that decision unraveled communication issues between the council and School Committee that Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong said the groups needed to repair.

“What we need to fix is to have an open and flowing dialogue with our School Committee,” Khamsyvoravong said. “The City Council and School Committee are partners, as contentious as the relationship may seem at the moment, this is nonetheless a good relationship.”

The costs to build a new Rogers High School building have skyrocketed since the $98.8 million bond that was approved by Newport voters in 2020, in large part due to COVID-19 pandemic-related cost escalations. The project is now projected to cost about $14.6 million over budget. In September, the School Building Committee determined that it would need at least $12.5 million of this overage funded to lock in bid prices and secure a certificate of occupancy, which the project needs by summer 2025 to receive the full reimbursement expected from the Rhode Island Department of Education.

The School Building Committee pulled $2 million from the owner’s contingency and the School Committee pulled an additional $2 million from its “fund balance,” a surplus of funds the department acquired over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision for the City Council to contribute $6.3 million to the project was supposed to be done at the previous meeting on Oct. 25, however, Councilor Jeanne Marie Napolitano had asked for the item to be tabled. At the meeting this Wednesday, Napolitano explained that she felt pressured and rushed by the School Committee, who voted to ask the City Council for the money at an early morning meeting on the Friday before the week of the council meeting. The item had to be added on to the agenda after it had been initially published on the secretary of state’s website.

“I think it was very unfair to present a resolution like this from the School Department asking us for that much money and not even giving us a chance to check it out,” Napolitano said. “This was unacceptable to get this within 48 hours.”

However, Councilor Angela McCalla argued against Napolitano’s statement, saying she and the rest of the council had received information about this request prior to the official vote at the School Committee meeting.

"We knew exactly what we were doing," McCalla said.

Many on the council have expressed disappointment and frustration over the way the project is being managed since the costs began spiraling upward. During the meeting, Councilor Mark Aramli even described the budget overage as described by the School Department and reported by local media outlets as being inaccurate, as the project is missing aspects originally pitched as a part of the school the Newport voters, such as space for automotive and cosmetology programs, central office space, and a track, although the former three had not been a part of the project plans pitched to RIDE in the city’s Stage II application.

How to build a school: Opening of new Rogers High School pushed back to 2025. An in-depth look at how we got here

However, Aramli, in a show of cooperation and support for the School Department, made an amendment to strike out a phrase in the action item, which implied the city would not agree to any further funding requests to help the school building project’s completion in the future.

“I believe the messaging as it is right now is not collaborative messaging with the School Committee,” Aramli said. “Take what you’re going to get and that’s it.’ I don’t think that’s good messaging from the council … If Rogers High School needs more money to get done, it’s got to get the money.”

While the line in the resolution would not have bound the council legally to not commit any more of its funds to the project, Interim City Manager Laura Sitrin, who served as the city’s director of finance before taking on her interim role, said the city does not have any more than $6.3 million to give. Any more money would have to go to the voters as a bond referendum, she said. Aramli’s amendment was approved unanimously.

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Rogers High School project gets $6.3 million funding boost from city